Thanksgiving has become more complicated in the last decade. Justifiably, its roots can be divisive - a topic I won’t get into here. Then there’s the transformation from breaking bread and sharing gratitude, to a binge-shopping kick off, also known eerily as Black Friday.
But let’s not throw the turkey out with the brine water! The sentiment behind it, the collective prompt to thank each other and gather with family and community for a nourishing meal, has real value. This idea, minus the tryptophan, is very familiar to me and the whole Laughter On Call team.
Whenever we work with either healthcare workers or our corporate partners, “expressing appreciation,” is a whole lesson in itself. Usually when I introduce it, one or several comedians will yell out “like Dani says, it’s FREE!” Because I usually do say that. Expressing appreciation for the people who make your life better costs nothing but time and eye contact. Yet it has proven value. The National Institute of Health reported…
“...patients who underwent gratitude interventions experienced greater feelings of gratitude, better mental health, and fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression. Moreover, they experienced other benefits such as a more positive mood and emotions.”
I knew generally about the impact of expressing gratitude, but always assumed the benefits landed on the person you were talking to. What this implies is that by expressing gratitude, we also experience higher levels of gratitude. In doing so we also lower our own anxiety and depression. Which is what led the NIH study to conclude:
“...developing feelings and performing acts of gratitude can be used as a therapeutic complement in treating anxiety and depression, and can increase positive feelings and emotions in the general population.”
Apparently it’s very good timing for Thanksgiving. At a time when it’s easy to be sucked into a black hole of cynicism and fear, giving thanks to each other is a win-win proposition.
We also love to get granular about what we’re happy about. Training the brain to appreciate even the smallest details of your day. This seems particularly apt if you’re going to be sitting at a table with people who…challenge you. Find one thing you are grateful for about them, their willingness to show up, their sharing a point of view you didn’t think you’d ever hear someone say out loud, their shoes. Anything. In doing so, you’re definitely making sharing pie possible but also, it turns out, you are addressing your own mental health.
We hear about this all the time in cognitive decline. About how important it is to care for the caregiver - it has been proven that dementia sufferers who are cared for by depressed people have a ten percent faster decline.
I’m glad we have this one meal to focus on appreciating each other and what's good in our lives. All I’m saying is why keep it to one meal at the end of November?
Taking inspiration from the August “Make A Change” trend, let’s be specific this season and focus on this one change: expressing appreciation! Here’s a company that makes gratitude journals! Of course they do. But now that I know what a mental health goldmine expressing appreciation is, instead of being cynical about this, I’m going to buy one of these. Just hoping they have a page for writing what we appreciate about ourselves. Another great tool for the dark days of winter!
Also feeling grateful to have scrolled past Amazon to give support to a small company with a positive message and a fighting spirit! Just in time for Small Business Saturday. ;)
